


Head Trauma

by hailingstars



Series: Febuwhump [10]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Blood, Concussions, Father's Day, Febuwhump, Head Injury, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Thunderstorms, vomitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 00:06:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17735228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailingstars/pseuds/hailingstars
Summary: Peter crashes through Tony's window during a Thunderstorm with his head gushing blood and with a Father's Day card in hand.





	Head Trauma

**Author's Note:**

> hope everyone's weekend was great! I'm currently mourning the end of mine. it's too cold and too soon for Monday morning. Please enjoy this short, short story.

Fire crackled, rain roared, and the thunder rumbled a low, relaxing tremor. 

The flashes of lightening outside flickering through his windows and into his dim living room didn’t distract Tony from staring into the fire, watching the logs burn, and swishing his whiskey around in his glass. All this was just background noise and images from the memories playing out in his head over and over again. Sometimes he could stop his mind from playing them, but on that night, they were unbidden, persistent and cruel. 

He was young, little enough to sit in a chair without his feet touching the ground and drawing with crayons on a plain sheet of paper. His letters were big and blocky, but his spelling was flawless. He added a picture, just two stick figures, one small like him, and the other bigger, meaner. He’d hoped making him a card would soften him up. It hadn’t. 

Tony remembered that the most. The indifferent face Howard made when Tony presented him with a homemade Father’s Day card with a drawing that didn’t display the truth, but a wish. That his father would spend time with him. Even when he was a child Tony knew how to read faces, and he’d read his father’s in an instant. Not interested. He knew for sure later when he found the card in the trash can in Howard’s office, sitting right on top. The man hadn’t even felt ashamed enough to situate so it was on the bottom. 

He imagined his face fell the same way Peter’s had a couple of days ago, when he’d snapped at him for doing something stupid, but decidedly teenager-ish. Peter was just acting his age. Tony was acting like Howard. 

Happy fucking Father’s Day to him. 

He raised his glass, gave a silent toast to the man who didn’t have time to raise him, who was around just enough to screw up him, and knocked back the rest of his whiskey. He slammed the glass on the table at the same time a particular violent bolt of lightning lit the sky, and at the same time, his windows shattered. 

Tony jumped to his feet and spotted his Spider-Child wobbling on both his feet, glass shards under him and a plastic bag with an envelope inside one of his hands. They stared at each other a few seconds, and Tony was about to ask Peter what was wrong when the boy took off his mask. That’s when it went everywhere. The blood. 

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, shit,” said Peter. His mask was in his hands, the envelope still sitting between his fingers and he was staring inside. “T-there’s so much blood. I-is it bad?”

Yes, yes it was bad. Tony didn’t see where the blood was coming from. There was too much of it to see anything. It was caked in his hair, smudged across his face, and now, drenching his hands. Tony wrecked his brain for the right thing to say, for the words that would comfort Peter, calm him down instead of encouraging his freaking out, but he was too slow. 

Peter sunk to his knees and almost fell into the glass shard. Tony caught him and looked into the brown and wide eyes staring up at him. They were full of fear, but also, thank the gods, still full of life, even if that light seemed to be getting dimmer. His body was frail and limp in his arms. 

“I got’cha,” he told him. 

“Mmm - I’m sorry,” said Peter. “About the other day.”

That apology was like icicles stabbing him in the heart. He should be apologizing, to him, but instead he said, “Don’t think about that right now, okay?” 

Peter quietly hummed his agreement as Tony lifted him and carried him towards the elevator. It was so soft, so still, Tony almost hadn’t heard it over the wind that brought the rains in through the now broken window. 

*

Tony put Peter down on a hospital bed in medical and let the doctors get to work. He held onto to Peter’s mask. As blood drenched as it was, he couldn’t seem to let it go. He was going to have to make him a new one. This one had a giant gash through it. Tony also held onto that mysterious plastic, zip-lock bag. He was curious, but the least he could was respect Peter’s privacy as the doctors invaded all his personal space cleaning him up. 

He watched as they cleaned, as they bandaged, and as they hooked him up to an IV. 

“He’s got a concussion,” said the doctor in charge. “And lost a lot of blood, but he’s healing fast, like his charts said he would. He’ll be okay, with rest and fluid intake.” 

The medical team deserted the room, and Tony walked closer to Peter’s bed, putting the plastic bag and Spider-Man’s mask down on the counter as he went. Peter sat up against the raised part of the mattress, blinked back at him, sporting a white bandage wrapped around his head like a headband. His brown hair fell over parts of it. He was young, and always looked painfully younger when he was injured. 

“You should see the other guy,” said Peter. He paused, then added, “Actually we should really see about the other guy. I sort of dropped him, on a car, while I was swinging… I hope he’s okay.” 

Tony blinked a couple of times. “He stabbed you.” 

“I’ll live,” said Peter, with a shrug. 

Only because his healing powers. Only because he made it back, by some miracle, to a place with its own medical facility. He wanted to interject these statements. He needed Peter to realize he was invincible, but Peter interrupted his thoughts with a string of nervous rambling. 

“Mr. Stark I’m sorry about the other day, that I didn’t listen to you and almost messed up everything – “

“-Pete,” he said. “It’s forgotten.”

“But – “ 

“Look we both,” started Tony. He took a breath and sat down in the chair next to his bed. “We both know I… have a habit of overreacting.” 

Peter’s expression was unreadable, but after a few beats, Tony detected just a trace of humor.

“… can I get a recording of you saying that?” 

“Nope,” said Tony, immediately. Throwing around jokes meant a mutual understanding. They were past their argument, and they both made it out fine.

“So, I guess you liked your card, huh?” asked Peter, smiling. It looked wrong. Tony didn’t understand how anyone could smile with their head banged up like that. 

“My what?” 

Tony turned his head and looked back at the counter where the plastic bag laid next to the mask. Both items were still covered in blood, but Tony didn’t care. He retreated the bag, unzipped, and pulled out the envelope. 

It was damp. Some of the water and blood must’ve leaked through, and when Tony opened it, the card inside was smudged with light pink. Still, it was the best thing Tony had ever seen. A Father’s Day card, for him, with a hand-drawn picture inside instead of words, similar to the pictures Tony drew for kids when they asked for his autograph. It showed, not with the best artistic skill, Spider-Man and Iron Man fighting together, beating up a giant purple alien. 

It wasn’t a wish. It was an accurate depiction of their relationship. 

“I’m sorry if it’s weird to give you a card today, Mr. Stark,” said Peter. “I know we’re not really related – “

“-Pete,” he said. “I love it.”

There was a faint smile on Peter’s face, before it disappeared, replaced by a look Tony knew. He carefully put the card down, grabbed the trashcan and shoved it into Peter’s face just in time for him to empty, probably, the entire contents of his stomach while Tony rubbed his back and tried not to think about how close his other hand was to getting thrown up on. 

“I hate this,” said Peter, once he was finished. Tony handed him a towel to clean his face. “Concussions, bad.” 

“And yet it’s still not gonna stop you from diving straight back into danger once you’re healed.” 

“Nope.”

Tony sat back down in the chair next to the bed. “So, you ever gonna tell me how we ended up here?”   
The smile crept back onto Peter’s face. He launched into the tale, and Tony kicked his feet up on the boy’s bed, planning to make himself as comfortable as he could be while listening to Peter rely, in painfully specific detail, all the dangerous on-goings of his evening. It was horrifying. It was awful, and it had all started because Peter had decided to go to a convenience store and buy him a card. 

A gesture Tony wasn’t sure he deserved but would worship anyway, would literally build a shrine to, by placing the card on his desk in a frame, never to be thrown away like garbage. It was his most prized possession, and he couldn’t afford to lose it.


End file.
